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Health Reports

A Canadian peer-reviewed journal of population health and health services research

January 2015

Chronic pain, activity restriction and flourishing mental health

by Heather Gilmour

The association between chronic pain and poor psychological health is well established. A potential explanation for this relationship is that pain affects mental well-being by limiting usual activities such as personal care, work and family roles and leisure and social pursuits. The Activity Restriction (AR) model of depressed affect posits that psychological
adjustment to a stressor is related largely, and sometimes only, to the day-to-day activity restrictions that result. Thus, while pain can contribute directly to mental illness, it can also contribute indirectly by limiting activities and thereby increasing psychological distress. In the AR model, activity restriction mediates the relationship between pain and depression.

Is the injury gap closing between the Aboriginal and general populations of British Columbia?

Higher injury mortality and morbidity rates have been documented for indigenous peoples than for the general population in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Similarly, Canadian studies indicate disparities at national and regional levels, including the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia, and for children in Newfoundland and
Labrador and in Alberta.